And if someone had warned her she would lose her heart to the devastatingly handsome, magnetic rake who had cozened her into making ices for a depraved house party, she would have scoffed. But here she was, on her way back to London and a life that no longer seemed as certain as it had before she’d left. Returning was bittersweet. Because it was the beginning of the end.
Yes, she had fallen in love with the Duke of Whitby. Miranda could admit it to herself, if to no one else. Definitely not to him.
Her embarrassing, naïve mistake needed to be held closely to her bruised and battered heart. Nothing could come of it. She was content with her school. He was content to seek pleasure. His words in the tub the night before had made that clearer to her than anything else.
Rhys was a sybarite.
Their arrangement was temporary. He would move on to someone else, and she would throw herself into her school, her recipes, and her ice caves. She had the funding she needed to grow her businesses, and she would be content with that. Falling in love with him had been not just foolish, but futile.
She knew that, of course. She was a practical woman. This affair was meant to be her taste of passion, enough to last her a lifetime. She hadn’t expected feelings for him to develop or grow so quickly. But like a determined, invasive weed in a garden, they had. Five interminable years of marriage with Ammondale, and she hadn’t felt a thing other than sadness, pain, and regret. One week with Rhys, and she was helplessly in his thrall.
That was her mistake, lowering her guard. And he had stormed her like an enemy taking a castle. But she could carry on. She simply had to keep her emotions to herself.
She turned away from the window, determined to distract herself from such complex, unwanted thoughts. Rhys was seated opposite her, his long legs elegantly sprawled before him, crossed at the ankles. His hat was on the leather squabs along with his gloves, his golden hair catching the sun filtering through the blinds and glinting. His vivid gaze was upon her, and she wondered how long he’d been studying her without her realizing.
“You are quiet,” she said. “Is something amiss?”
He was, she had learned, a loquacious man, always talking, teasing, probing. Miranda was the opposite, quite accustomed to living in the space within her own head. Ammondale had never been interested in her thoughts, and she had learned over the course of their unhappy union to simply keep them to herself. But like his sensuality, Rhys embraced discourse.
He passed a hand over his sharp jaw, sighing. “It is nothing. At least, I think it’s nothing. But I cannot shake the notion that there was something decidedly off about Richford this last week.He has been surlier than usual, disappearing at odd times, and I learned just this morning that he left without word yesterday. It isn’t like him.”
The Duke of Richford was one of the six founding members of the Wicked Dukes Society, having come up together at Eton. Rhys had shared a great deal about their long-standing friendship with her, and how years ago in drunken revelry, they had settled upon the idea of their club. Miranda hadn’t been a part of the fast set in which Rhys and his chums had run, but she had crossed paths with Richford in her old life on a handful of occasions. She recalled a handsome and forbidding man, with a neat beard and dark-gold hair.
“Perhaps there is something in his life that is troubling him,” she ventured. “Something with a family member? An illness?”
He shook his head. “It wouldn’t be like Richford to keep such a thing secret.”
That was curious, indeed. Miranda was grateful for the diversion. Anything to keep from thinking about how she had been imprudent enough to fall in love with Rhys.
She pondered what he had said for a moment. “What do you mean when you say he has been disappearing?”
Rhys scrubbed his hand over his jaw some more. “No one knew where he was. He wasn’t at any of the revelries, from what King and Riverdale said.”
Nor had Rhys, but that had been because they had been together.
“He may have been otherwise occupied,” she said gently.
“But with whom? None of the guests.” He frowned.
Understanding dawned. “Are you concerned he was dallying with one of the domestics?”
“I…it wouldn’t be like him to do so. We have strict rules that we adhere to, and refraining from bedding servants is decidedly one of them.” He shook his head, looking lost in his ownmusings. “But Riverdale said he saw him with a lady at some point, so it certainly seems as if perhaps a woman was to blame. Still, I cannot fathom who. All the guests left this morning as planned, everyone accounted for.”
“That is odd,” she agreed. “I suppose that when we reach London, you might seek him out and make certain all is well.”
The reminder that they were presentlyen routeto London was an unwelcome reminder. How easy it had been to pretend as if their idyll at Wingfield Hall would simply never end. And yet, it had. Just as their month as lovers inevitably would too.
“Bloody hell,” Rhys muttered. “London is the last place I want to be at the moment.”
She felt the same. But they couldn’t hide away in Hertfordshire forever, and she knew it.
“It will be good, in some ways, to return to our routines,” she said, summoning a smile for his benefit.
“Will it?” He was suddenly sullen. “It hardly feels that way. I want nothing more than to turn this carriage around and spend the next month ravishing you everywhere I can and in as many ways as possible.”
His words brought her desire to life, chasing the melancholy.
“You can still spend the next month ravishing me,” she pointed out. “Only, we shall be in London.”
